January 24, 2025

Welcome to TFCA Friday, a weekly round-up of film reviews and articles by TFCA members.

In Release this Week

Curl Power (dir. Josephine Anderson)

“It’s easy to feel confident on the ice, one of the girls notes. It’s a self-contained world, 15 by 150 feet, filled with 16 stones weighing in at about 700 pounds, grounded by strict rules and terminology. But real life is bigger and far more complicated, and Anderson, who followed her subjects for three years, eavesdrops on moments of their thoughtful, tender realizations of what a wide, weird world it is. And how these friends will soon be heading their separate ways in it,” says Chris Knight at Original Cin. “Their unfiltered comments show how fully the director has gained the trust of her subjects. The film’s respectful presentation proves how well deserved it was.”

“Despite raising some pressing issues that many teens will identify with, the enormity of the challenges they face are not fully felt,” observes Courtney Small at POV Magazine. “Never cracking beyond the surface its curling sliders glide on, Anderson’s camera observes the girls with more of a compassionate lens than a probing one. While the audience is privy to a few revealing moments, such as when one girl shares that her mother has been diagnosed with cancer and another confides to her mom about her body insecurities, these moments are few and far between.”

“Most sports documentaries end on a high note in which the team wins at the climax of the film,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “In Curl Power, the opposite happens with the team ending in a losing game. But this is where director Anderson excels in her tale of her story of teen angst, ecstasy, and curling.  The coach’s words are inspiring: ‘When a team member misses, she has to be given an encouraging look and it is the next move that counts.’”

Flight Risk (dir. Mel Gibson)

“While it won’t be confused for ‘Shakespeare in the Park’, there’s something undeniable about Flight Plan and its 91 minutes of fun,” says Dave Voigt at In the Seats. “There’s an art to quality B-Movies and filmmakers like Mel can actually make the familiar absurdity of any given situation still feel pretty fresh.”

“Wahlberg is more capable than the film’s dialogue allows. His character, who at one point resembles a stocky Ron Howard, is indeed vicious, but his role mainly consists of issuing sexual threats to both Winston and the Marshall,” notes Thom Ernst at Original Cin. “While there are a few twists in the film, much like the certainty of a flight delay, none arrive unexpectedly.”

“Flight Risk is a reasonably well executed thriller,” adds Marc Glassman at Classical FM. “Dockery is fine—and miles away from the aristocratic character she plays in Downton Abbey. It’s nice to see Topher Grace again, years after his heyday as the lead in That ‘70s Show. And Wahlberg is properly menacing as the assassin, although his performance is slightly over-the-top. The producers deserve a kudo for making the film so lean and mean. Very few films get made that are only an hour and a half in length—more’s the pity.”

“The main story is sidetracked by several subplots in order to stretch the story long enough to hold interest in a feature-length film; entertaining enough, and not to be taken too seriously,” sighs Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto.

“This is eye-rolling stuff of the kind a streaming service algorithm might belch out in the early hours of a lost weekend and it’s quite the comedown for Gibson,” admits Peter Howell at the Toronto Star. “The casting of Wahlberg as the hit man is the film’s biggest misstep, considering the head-scratching decision to reveal him as such in the trailer. Wahlberg rarely plays the bad guy — this is his first villainous lead since 1996’s Fear — and it would have benefited the story and ratcheted up the suspense to withhold his character’s true intentions until later in the film.”

“It should also not go unmentioned that, for whatever reason, Wahlberg wears a bald cap and oscillates between a southern-fried accent and his native Boston growl, neither vocal register approximating anything close to how a normal human might speak,” notes Barry Hertz at The Globe and Mail. “I realize that all these flaming-dumpster elements might make the movie sound like a guilty-pleasure lark perfect for lazy late-January viewing – the cinematic equivalent to finding a few shiny coins in the gutter. But Flight Risk is not so bad that it is good – it is simply so bad that it is really terribly awfully very very very bad, the kind of zero-effort exercise that will leave even the most bruised and battered action-movie junkie begging for the sweet release of death itself.”

Grafted (dir. Sasha Rainbow)

“Director Rainbow does not skimp on the gory skin grafting scenes.  In fact she seems to revel in them with extended almost too ghastly to watch skin grafting acts on screen,” writes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto.

Hard Truths (dir. Mike Leigh)

***TFCA Awards Winner: Outstanding Lead Performance – Marianne Jean-Baptiste***

“Hard Truths is a film centered on a difficult, damaged human being.  Watching the movie is not unlike the experience of being in the company of just such a person — uncomfortable, sobering, deeply moving,” says Liz Braun at Original Cin. “Leigh’s film quietly shows, through snippets of conversation and brief, everyday interactions, the sort of protective shield love can create in any life. Chantelle’s exuberant daughters love their mother and tease her mercilessly; Chantelle’s customers discuss potential romance in their lives, alive to possibility, to little scraps of hope and happiness.”

“Mike Leigh and frequent collaborator Marianne Jean-Baptiste join forces for another powerful gut punch in the searing domestic drama Hard Truths.  Jean-Baptiste is Pansy, a deeply embittered wife and mother angry at the world and filled with self-doubt, lashing out at family, and just about anyone else who comes into her sphere,” writes Anne Brodie at What She Said. “Pansy is stuck. We see no redemption, no remorse. Leigh’s painful character study seems a peculiar offering, but it’s about Jean-Baptiste’s effective performance and Leigh’s risk-taking.”

“Director Leigh steers his film to a climax in which the family reaches a breaking point,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Mike Leigh’s minor masterpiece is just matched by performances so exact.  HARD TRUTHS is simply a pleasure to watch as it is always hilarious to observe the worst of oneself as toxic human beings!”

“It’s also rudely hilarious, like a clown’s seltzer-bottle spritz to the face, to watch Pansy’s many public tantrums, in which she frequently gives voice to thoughts most people wouldn’t dare say out loud,” adds Peter Howell at the Toronto Star. “The casting of Jean-Baptiste and Austin as sibling opposites is the film’s real genius. The rapport between the two women transcends and elevates the sparseness of Leigh’s screenplay, which he wrote — as per his custom — after having his cast thoroughly workshop their roles.”

“Leigh has chosen to make Baptiste’s character, Pansy, a mystery. We don’t know what made her so infuriated with life but there is no doubt that her primary emotions are agony and distress. She’s awakened thrice in the film and each time Baptiste shrieks in horror at being returned to the waking world,” says Marc Glassman at Classical FM. “At a memorial visit to her mother’s grave, Baptiste’s Pansy speaks about the shock at finding her dead, as if the act was intentional. Pansy’s sister Celeste (a riveting Michele Austin) attempts to turn the raw revelation into something conventional about mortality and familial harmony is shown to be ineffectual and inconsequential.”

It’s All Gonna Break (dir. Stephen Chung)

At That Shelf, Rachel West chats with Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew about the years-in-the-making portrait of the band and Toronto’s music scene. “I do like that love letter aspect to community and to the artscape world that it was, and, and to sort of show people upon real estate, taking over our town that there was a time where artists did have a say, and there were privileged platforms to go to, to help yourself get things made,” says Drew. “I see this beautiful memory about a city that I knew, but I also have no time within the realm of doing some interviews for this to speak about it in a way where I’m the old guy going, Well, back in the day… It’s what’s happening all around us and it’s happening to us.”

Loren & Rose (dir. Russell Brown; Jan. 28)

“A small budget, neat little conversational piece, the film with its moderate aims succeeds at what it intends to do,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto

Nightbitch (dir. Marielle Heller)

“Adams’ comic timing is consistently astute, even in turmoil. Motherhood, we see, is a purgatorial repeated sequence of breakfasts, bedtime stories and, in a moment of respite, a large glass of red wine each afternoon,” writes Liam Lacey at Original Cin. “In the last third, the film focuses instead Mother and Husband’s struggling marriage, and the film’s didactic aim rises to clunky prominence. It seems that Mother really needs more time to make art, art that will reveal her inner turmoil and teach Husband to be a better parent. Was this all an elaborate metaphor for the benefits of relationship counselling?”

“It’s a bitchin’ ode to motherhood with a career-best performance by Amy Adams. You’ll want to hug your mom after seeing Nightbitch,” says Pat Mullen at That Shelf. Mullen also gets some words from Amy Adams about embracing her wild side for the role. “The idea of tapping into an animal instinct, it’s not just in parenting, but it’s to bring us closer to ourselves,” Adams says. “It removes all of the expectations and the Instagram filters and the veneer of perfection that there’s only one way to do something. It’s like getting back to a basic understanding of identifying your needs, your partner’s needs, and your child’s needs in a really organic way, instead of trying to meet the needs of the pressure of the world around you.”

Presence (dir. Steven Soderbergh)

“It is a nifty conceit, but stretched to feature-length form, it could have fallen apart without David Koepp’s swift script (developed from an initial 10-page outline written by Soderbergh),” writes Barry Hertz at The Globe and Mail. “When Presence opens, Chris (Chris Sullivan) and Rebecca (Lucy Liu) are just another happy couple with two teenage kids who are looking to expand their horizons, and move into a better school district. But after they all move in to their new house, it’s clear that something is deeply wrong – and it’s not just the ghost/camera that traces every step of the family’s movements.” Hertz also chats with director Steven Soderbergh and gets his thoughts on Letterboxd: “No, I haven’t, but it sounds great and I’m aware that it’s a thing. But it falls into that category of stuff that I just can’t get sucked into,” says Soderbergh. “There are just so many hours in a week, and I’ve got to be smart about my time management. Most of the spare time I have, I’m probably reading. I watch stuff as well, but the best reset for me is to read. It de-stresses me. So the idea of spending 40 minutes of free time on Letterboxd, that’s not a de-stressor. I need to mentally disappear.”

“The dominant presence throughout is Soderbergh’s camera, locked in like a spycam, eavesdropping on conversations in the kitchen, family room, and bedroom, or moving through the home and up the staircase with impossible ease and speed, as if the camera were a ghost,” says Thom Ernst at Original Cin. “The illusion is, of course, intentional, allowing the audience a ghostly view. Although the stunt of positioning the camera to make the audience a voyeur seems redundant — since watching a movie is inherently voyeuristic — the effect remains compelling.”

“Nothing is clear after that – who the presence of the house is; whether Ryan the sexy kid is good or bad; whether the psychic is for real; whether the daughter can really feel the presence and so on,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “This distinguishes this ghost story from the run-of-the-mill, making the film intriguing and fresh from start to end.”

The Sand Castle (dir. Matty Brown)

“[O]ver ambitious, poetic and beautifully shot family drama on a Robinson Crusoe setting does not fulfill its grand aims but is still a worthy watch,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto.

Oscars! Oscars! Oscars!

At the Toronto Star, Peter Howell breaks down some of the biggest surprises in the Oscar nominations, notably the competitive Best Actress race. “[T]here was genuine shock for the category’s snub of Marianne Jean-Baptiste, the much-lauded star of the British family drama Hard Truths, while there was less surprise over the no-shows for Nicole Kidman (Babygirl) and Angelina Jolie (Maria). And Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres continues to impress with her well-deserved best actress nod for her lead role in I’m Still Here, which opens Jan. 31 in Toronto,” notes Howell. “Along with its other two nominations, for best picture and best international feature, I’m Still Here qualifies as this year’s ‘Little Picture That Could’ contender. Could it pull off a surprise best picture triumph like CODA did at the 2022 Academy Awards, which also went into the ceremony with only three nominations?”

At The Globe and Mail, Barry Hertz looks at the surprises and omissions, including Clint Eastwood’s Juror # 2 after Warner Bros.’ dismissive release of the film: “Despite the best attempts of Warner Bros. to bury Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial effort – and, given the man’s 94-year-old age, possibly his last – Juror # 2 found wide favour with critics during its short theatrical run late last year,” says Hertz. “And ever since it’s made its streaming debut (on Max in the U.S., Crave in Canada), the legal thriller starring Nicholas Hoult has made quick, hearty fans. Which makes its failure to net even a single nomination all that much more dispiriting for the hard core Clint-heads out there. While Warner Bros. might feel vindicated, I’m sure the studio remains, in Eastwood’s eyes, unforgiven.”

At FIPRESCI, Brian D. Johnson reports on the international contenders at the Palm Springs Film Festivals, including Emilia Pérez, which set a record for non-English nominees. “But Emilia Pérez, a transcultural movie if ever there was one, is a rare and miraculous example of an auteur crowd-pleaser that has bust out of the arthouse while dissolving boundaries of genre, gender and nationality,” writes Johnson. “Talk about new frontiers: a French director who doesn’t speak Spanish makes a musical thriller about Mexico that is not really a thriller or a musical while casting a Spanish transexual, a former Disney pop star, and that blue alien princess from Avatar. In an industry prone to existential despair, suddenly anything seems possible.”

And at Zoomer, Johnson explains why Emilia Pérez should be the film to beat: “Emelia Pérez, which has the lion’s share of 13 nominations, deserves to win.  And it will, unless Academy voters feel it’s over-nominated, or if protests in the trans community over its portrayal of Karla Sofía Gascón’s character escalate. This movie is like nothing we’ve ever seen before – a musical thriller about a drug lord transitioning to a woman  in a tale that’s not about drugs, crime or gender. That something so audacious can also be a crowd pleaser is uncanny. It’s as if director Jacques Audiard has split some kind of cinematic atom and blown open the arthouse.”

At CBC, Eli Glasner looks at the ongoing controversy behind Emilia Pérez, the love it or hate it movie that’s leading the field and speaks with voices on both sides of the divide.

At That Shelf, Rachel West gets some words with Adam J. Graves, director of the Oscar-nominated live action short Anuja and producer Mindy Kaling. The latter reflects on juggling films and television, and how that plays into her role with the short. “ It’s really fascinating for me coming from a completely different world of comedy, TV, and writing, hearing you say you get talent and you give them the freedom to do what you want because that’s what Adam McKay does with Steve Carell. Do you know what I mean? It’s so fascinating seeing how these same things apply,” says Kaling. “Anything that’s wonderful with a sense of spontaneity and you know when to get it scripted and you know when to let them be free. As an actress and someone who works in comedy, that’s all you want really from a director.”

File Under Miscellaneous

At POV Magazine, Pat Mullen highlights 10 documentaries at Sundance he’s keeping an eye on, including the Canadian animated feature Endless Cookie. “If cookies are a sometimes treat, as Cookie Monster advises, then get ready for a lifetime of chocolate chips with Endless Cookie. Seth Scriver makes a long-awaited return to feature film after his 2013 animated odyssey Asphalt Watches,” writes Mullen. “This time, he’s collaborating with his half-brother, Peter. The cinematic siblings promise another adventure from the lunatic fringe à la Asphalt Watches as Endless Cookie sees Seth, who is white, create a movie centered upon the stories told by his Indigenous half-brother, who lives in Shamattawa First Nations. The film puts a unique twist on traditions of oral storytelling—and documentary form—as animation provides the visuals for Peter’s interviews. But which brother is the unreliable narrator—the interviewer or the interviewee—may be part of the story as the animation favours a whimsically surreal aesthetic. Do not expect a conventional doc.”

At The Canadian Encyclopedia, Pat Mullen chronicles the history and growth of imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. “imagineNATIVE was founded in 1999 by Cynthia Lickers-Sage and the Toronto-based not-for-profit distributor Vtape with the help of community partners,” writes Mullen. “Outreach for the project began when video artist Zachary Longboy visited Indigenous communities across Ontario to learn how they were telling stories through images. Lickers-Sage took over the project in 1995. In 1998, the catalogue imagineNATIVE: Aboriginally Produced Film & Video was published. It was a major catalogue indexing Indigenous film and video works, along with resources to connect artists and communities. The catalogue was primarily focused on creative works by Indigenous directors and artists. Lickers-Sage also held workshops in Indigenous communities to restore the visual storytelling processes she was researching.”

TV Talk/Series Stuff

At What She Said, Anne Brodie binges C.B. Strike: The Ink Black Heart: “Pay close attention; there is a lot in play,” advises Brodie. “Meanwhile, Corm and Robin have worked together a while and the suggestion of romance continues to thrust and parry, but is gently squelched. Will this be another Moonlighting?  And shoutout to the great British character actor Ruth Sheen as the smart, honest assistant we all need.” She also deduces a worthy adaptation in Watson: “This, the most modern take yet, seriously toys with the original, focussed on Holmes’ companion and sounding board Dr. Watson, flung into the 21^st century.”